In Good Company: The Church as Polis
... Thus a real alternative is introduced, which builds explicitly on God and nonviolence, and on the basis of which all other social and political structures have to be assessed anew. Innsbruckian dramatic theology therefore welcomes theological approaches that grant political significance to the church as a public and institutional community (Milbank 1990;Milbank et al. 1999;Hauerwas 1995). Not only ethical efforts but God's work in history is what is ultimately decisive, and this work aims at the creation of a people, which can be concretely experienced in the church (Lohfink 1998). ...
The twentieth century produced various forms of political theology. These theological debates always involved, either directly or indirectly, a discussion of the fundamental category of sacrifice, which has played a central role in all traditional religions and societies. This chapter sketches briefly the dramatic model before attending to some implications for a theological politics that stands out against conventional political theology. With his message of the impending kingdom of God, Jesus did not just teach a concept of God but proclaimed, first of all, a new and definitively binding act of God on Israel's behalf. Although Jesus' message was realized in his healings and could be directly experienced by the people, following a brief span of public enthusiasm it was increasingly rejected. Dramatic theology does not reduce the acts of God to ethics, nor does it suggest a one‐sided retreat into the inwardness of the soul.
... 16. See esp. the work of Hauerwas (Hauerwas, 1995;2000;Hauerwas & Willimon, 1989;1996) must be trustworthy or from whom we claim our right. In the first case the other one is in focus, in the latter we are in the centre. ...
At the heart of Christian faith and the life of the Church lies the conviction that God is love and that this is the rule by which the Christian community and indeed all of humanity is to be guided and judged. However, responding to the Scriptural witness of love as agapè – as practical faithfulness and self-giving to “the other” – is challenging and quite often very problematic. What is involved in “loving the Lord your God”? What is asked of us in the command to “love one’s enemy as oneself”? How is the Church called to manifest agapè in society? This contemplative essay reflects on these questions, revealing what is at stake in current debates in ecclesiology, ethics and the Christian life where love is claimed to rule.
... This rejection of "private faith" has taken at least two forms in contemporat~ evangelical political thought. While Reformed and Calvinist thinkers have emphasized the penetration and internal reform of the public institutions of govemment and politics(Noll 1994), Mennonite and Anabaptist thinkers h,ave stressed the status of the Christian church as a polis unto itself(Hauerwas 1995). Both approaches have been widely discussed among scholars at evangelical colleges.by ...
This article analyzes the changing role of campus rules at evangelical colleges. Although much of the literature on religion
and higher education asserts that the weakening of campus rules necessarily leads to secularization and the collapse of orthodoxy,
we reject this conclusion as overly deterministic. Through a discourse analysis of more than thirty years of campus newspaper
articles and other materials from six evangelical colleges, we demonstrate that evangelical opposition to rules has been rhetorically
grounded in both secular and religious styles of moral argumentation. While a considerable proportion of the articles employed
arguments resembling the rhetoric of secular in loco parentis debates, the majority of the articles marshaled explicitly religious
arguments grounded in the central doctrines of Reformation Protestant orthodoxy. We argue that this continued dramatization
of orthodox Protestant identity cannot be captured by a simple unilinear secularization model. Rather, both secularizing and
sacralizing dynamics have been at work in the discourse of evangelical college students, faculty, and alumni.
The United States national identity is changing as the non-religious population is growing and fewer Americans follow traditional Christian faiths. When Alexis De Tocqueville visited the United States, he found that the national government gained legitimacy and support from the popular national religion. This faith was nominally Christian but lacked any meaningful theological content. The national creed was a simple monotheism that was supported through the public’s integration of a Cartesian methodology. This national religion was critical in providing the foundation for American economic growth and identity. Today, fewer Americans identify as Christians than at any point in its history, and more citizens have no religious preference or creed. The dominant religious culture is changing, and to understand the United States future, it is important to identify the political preferences of the non-religious population. This paper looks at the most recent Cooperative Election Survey and assesses the non-religious population’s political participation and its aggregate support for U.S. military aid to Ukraine. The data show that the non-religious population is less politically active and more opposed to miliary aid to Kyiv. United States is becoming more secular. The division between the traditional religious and the growing secular populations is generating a cultural conflict—one that has a fundamental consequence for the American national identity.
Nicholas Norman-Krause argues, in this authoritative and sophisticated new treatment of conflict, that contestation is a basic - potentially regenerative - aspect of any flourishing democratic politics. In developing a distinctive 'agonistic theology,' and relating the political theory of agonism to social and democratic life, the author demonstrates that the conflicts of democracy may have a beneficial significance and depend at least in part on faith traditions and communities for their successful negotiation. In making his case, he deftly examines a rich range of religious and secular literatures, whether from the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, and Stanley Cavell or from less familiar voices such as early modern jurist and political thinker Johannes Althusius and twentieth-century Catholic social philosopher Yves Simon. Liberationists including Gustavo Gutiérrez and Martin Luther King, Jr. are similarly recruited for a theological account of conflict read not just as concomitant to, but also as constitutive of, democratic living.
Now that the major disagreements within political theology have come into relief and the characteristics of ecclesial ethics have been highlighted in the previous chapter, the following two chapters will use the lens of ecclesial ethics to launch a critical evaluation of what the conciliar documents teach about church-state relations. The critical evaluation of the conciliar documents in this chapter and the next will be assisted by two examples of ecclesial ethics. This chapter will use Stanley Hauerwas’ illuminating, yet brief essay on Dignitatis Humanae. The aim in these two chapters is to show that ecclesial ethics has an hitherto unfulfilled potential to provide an original critique of the conciliar documents and to reveal overlooked problems in their conception of church-state relations.
Before beginning the constructive work of Part II, I need to explain why Hauerwas and Cavanaugh will not be my interlocutors in the chapters to come. While they serve well as tools of critique, the limitations and problems of their political theology become apparent when they develop their alternative models of how church and state should be interrelated. The critique presented in this chapter of the problematic aspects of their thought in this chapter will therefore serve the constructive work of Part II by identifying the mistakes of ecclesial ethics that my framework of church-state relations will need to avoid, in addition to the problems already identified in Vatican II’s teachings.
Mimesis played a crucial role in moral and civic education in Graeco-Roman antiquity. From classical Greek drama to Aristotle to the Graeco-Roman rhetorical traditions, mimetic ethics focuses on how personal example and imitation shaped people’s behaviour and character. Extended contact with the Graeco-Roman traditions led early Christianity to adopt the concept of mimesis in the overlapping spheres of family and education. Discipleship and citizenship intersect in that Christians are called to be good disciples or ‘citizens’ in God’s society. This study explores the Johannine, Pauline, and Petrine traditions and proposes that the mechanism of personal example and imitation regulates the ethical–political life of early Christians and instructs them to live well in both the church and society.
In Christianity and the Nation-State, Gary Chartier provocatively offers readers unexpected critical distance from some familiar ways of understanding, justifying, and navigating existing political arrangements. People in multiple societies are posing important questions about the authority and functions of the contemporary nation-state and about potential alternatives to this seemingly inescapable institution. Chartier seeks to develop a distinctive theological response to the conditions prompting these questions. Affirming liberalism and cosmopolitanism, he reflects critically on nationalism, localism, religious establishment, and theological accounts of political authority. He highlights links between sin and state power and underscores deficiencies in democratic rhetoric and theory. He rejects the idea of a global government, advocating a nonterritorial alternative he labels 'radical consociationalism. Moreover, he presents concrete suggestions for life under the rule of the state.
Christian ethical treatments of work often build on a traditional rationalist path that tries to develop a critical system of work by which different work practices can be judged. This article contributes with a supplementary way of presenting ethical logics of work through a practice-theoretical ethnographic study of two faith-based businesses, one Catholic and one evangelical. I am thereby not interested in building a critical system of work, but through listening to practitioners and in dialogue with practices, I want to map out different kinds of good that exist in these practices and suggest better accounts. The analysis of the empirical material shows that even though operating somewhat differently, the two practices are characterized by reform and negotiation. With both reform and negotiation, the Christian ethic in these practices does not collapse into only negotiation, nor is it idealized by only reform; both processes are essential, and religion contributes in different ways to both.
The latter part of the 20th century is known for a surge in the so-called ‘genitive theologies’. Usually, a genitive theology has an ulterior motive, aiming at the transformation of a society or the promotion of sound politics and economy. In recent years, this trend culminated in public theology. The issue of religion with an ulterior motive was raised by Van de Beek in a seminal article focusing on theology without gaining anything from it as an answer to the surging genitive theologies of the latter part of the 20th century and the public theologies of today. Taking into account Van de Beek’s critique against ‘religion with an ulterior motive’, this article explores the concept of the church as a moral agent in dialogue with Van de Beek. The central theoretical argument of this investigation is that Van de Beek’s ecclesiology is valuable when defining the role of the church as a moral agent. However, the perspective of the Kingdom of God concerning the church can enrich one’s views and can add value to his valid critique on public theology.
As an emergent and rapidly growing international field of study, public theology has its focus on how Christian faith and practice impact on ordinary life. Its principle concern is thewell-being of society. In Africa, and in Kenya in particular, where poverty levels are still high, there is a need to enquire into the value and efficacy of the poverty discourses in publictheology, for the calling of the church to respond to poverty. One of the main and fast growingchurches in Kenya, the Africa Inland Church (AIC), has vast resources used for, amongst otherthings, various on-going work amidst the poor and the vulnerable in remote and poor areas. Due to the unrelenting nature of poverty in Kenya, the AIC needs a theological perspective, which is sufficiently sensitive to poverty and can enable it to respond to poverty moreeffectively. Public theology’s emphasis on gaining an entrée into the public square andadopting the agenda of communities, including public theology’s calling on churches toactively participate in rational and plausible public discourses, can assist the AIC to respondeffectively to the challenge of poverty in Kenya.
Transtraditional ecclesiologies address a divided Christianity. Postmodern ecclesiologies try to address the fragmented world. Features of postmodern thinking can be seen in a wide array of ecclesiologies, including many of those listed above. In some sense, the majority of theories about the church that developed during the last half century have some elements of postmodernism. For Stanley Grenz, at the heart of postmodern ecclesiology is the idea of relationship and community.1 Community in the postmodern setting is understood not as a solid structure but as a fluid reality featuring dynamic identity.2 Identity is a focal point of postmodern ecclesiologies. Communal identities are shaped by narratives, as Alasdair MacIntyre has shown in his important contribution to postmodern theology.3 James McClendon summarizes this line of thinking by defining community as “sharing together in a storied life of obedient service to and with Christ.”4 For Gerard Mannion, who has authored a study particularly dedicated to the relationship between ecclesiology and postmodernism, the postmodern way of thinking implies the openness of the church to the diversities within and outside it, epistemic humility, and commitment to dialogues: “Naturally, we must engage in dialogue with the wider societies and the world in general, learning lessons and gathering inspiration for how we might take the church forward.”5
And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
1
The churches are the largest voluntary associations in Northern Irish civil society (Morrow et al. 1991), but they have rarely been included in broader analyses of it. In particular, churches and religious organisations have been overlooked when it comes to analyses of how civil society has contributed to the Northern Irish peace process (Ganiel and Dixon, 2008). Apart from the work of Brewer (2003) and Appleby (2000), which highlights significant contributions of religious peace-builders,2 much of the scholarship on religion in Northern Ireland has focused on its contribution to the conflict or, at the very least, its role in maintaining boundaries between the Catholic and Protestant communities (Brewer and Higgins, 1998; Bruce, 1986; Fulton, 1991; Liechty and Clegg, 2001; Mitchell, 2003, 2006). Others have downplayed the religious dimensions of the conflict (McGarry and O’Leary, 1995), or argued that it matters only for a few fundamentalists or evangelicals. In this area, the Rev. Ian Paisley and his followers have been stereotyped as religious fanatics, providing ammunition for those who would exclude religion from the public sphere on the grounds that it is dangerous.3
Stanley Hauerwas's range of publications is so extensive, diverse, and overlapping that it defies summary and discourages even a simple list. This article sets out to identify the main aspects of Hauerwas's career, demonstrate the inner dynamic guiding his work, assess the key theological and philosophical movements that have been channeled through him, and gauge the significance of his achievement for theology and ethics in the years to come. The author suggests that the inner dynamic running through Hauerwas's career is one that is intrinsic to Methodism. Hauerwas's name is and will undoubtedly continue to be widely linked with such movements as the recovery of virtue in ethics, the emergence of narrative theology and ethics, the distinctiveness of Christian ethics, the strand of theology known as postliberal, and perhaps more latterly the relationship between liturgy and ethics.
The Political Nature of WorshipThreats, Losses, StrugglesRediscoveriesModes of Relating Worship and PoliticsConclusion
In a first section the author argues that 'seeing' is offundamental importance for ethics. In
a second section he concludes that Christian worship is therefore important for Christian
ethics, since Christian worship is one of the social locations where Christian believers
learn to see, 'to look in the right direction '. In a third section, he provides a brief answer
to the question why this is the case, making comments on the nature of Christian worship,
in particular the experience of time and history during worship. In a fourth section, he
draws on recent studies on the public role of Christian liturgy to argue that Christians
learn to see 'the world' in a specific way during Christian worship. In a concluding
section he reminds readers that Christian worship often fails this calling. He continuously
refers to South African examples.
The so-called crisis of human rights requires a precise diagnosis. Through a theoretical discussion of human rights and legal pluralism in the context of the freedom of religion in Malaysia, this paper suggests that the crisis ought to be understood as something vital to the character of rights. Crisis is not tangential to the human rights project: rights are political objects engendering political responses. Beginning with an excursion into legal positivism and liberalism, the paper argues that analyses of rights based on abstraction and presumptions of homogeneity are confounded in contexts of contested plurality. Secondly, legal pluralism is raised as a more suitable framework for rights. Finally, Augustine and Schmitt offer some clues as to how the political status of human rights might be properly acknowledged. The prominent Malaysian case of
Lina Joy
provides an ongoing commentary on the dangers of divorcing human rights from this essential political character.
The process of a four-dimensional conversion and/or transformation strives in helping the leadership of an organisation, especially such as the church, with practical ways that may lead to the development of an effective leadership by observing the four important aspects of human spirituality as elaborated on in the article. The spiritual, intellectual, moral and socio-political dimensions of the transformation can be catered for so that the complete inner being of humans, as well as their social and political attitudes and behaviours, can equally be transformed to maximum spiritual, personal and socio-political profitability. Mutombo-Mukendi demonstrates that the need for a spiritual leadership that can contribute to an effective transformation of Africa is dire, both for the church and the larger community. The real challenge is how to develop such leadership. This article provides intentional and practical ways that may lead to the development of the needed leadership. Four-dimensional transformation of people can be planned and carried out both in the church arena and in the surrounding communities. Skills development and transfer can also take place when skilled people from the church work with unskilled people from the community.
Miroslav Volf's book, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good, offers a valuable guide to how people of faith can engage in politics by calling on the best of their traditions, holding modest expectations, and remaining nonviolent. From the perspective of Catholic Social Teaching, Volf's model can be viewed as appropriately, but cautiously hopeful. Yet, given contemporary suspicion of religion in politics, the challenges of acting prophetically in a pluralistic society, and the responsibility of Christians to "be the church," it may be wise to begin with local actions rather than hoping to change the world by political means.
As the dominant moral vocabulary of modernity, the language of human rights establishes significant points of contact between the religious and the secular. Yet, the human rights movement increasingly finds itself in a contested relationship with religious ideas and communities. Even as it draws on the inherited moral resources of religion, the human rights movement, at least in its dominant institutional and intellectual expressions, presents itself as a totalizing moral theory that challenges countervailing theological accounts of human rights. This article considers the distinctive account of human rights that has emerged within Catholic social teaching. Particular attention is given to the process by which Catholic thinking about human rights has embraced political liberalism while also bounding liberalism within a particularistic theologically-informed account of the human person.
ABSTRACT Hauerwas's refusal to translate the argument displayed in With the Grain of the Universe (his recent Gifford Lectures) into language that “anyone” can understand is itself part of the argument. Consequently, readers will not understand what Hauerwas is up to until they have attained fluency in the peculiar language that has epitomized three decades of Hauerwas's scholarship. Such fluency is not easily gained. Nevertheless, in this review essay, I situate Hauerwas's baffling language against the backdrop of his corpus to show at least this much: With the Grain of the Universe transforms natural theology into “witness.” In the end, my essay may demonstrate what many have feared, that Hauerwas is, in fact, a Christian apologist—though of a very ancient sort.
Hauerwas is used to hearing that he is a sectarian, that he is fideist, and that he lacks a doctrine of creation. In this essay I have claimed that if he expanded his understanding of eschatology, he could successfully withstand all these criticisms. Hauerwas could avoid being called a sectarian if he stopped using spatial metaphors (such as 'living in between' Church and world) and conceived of the distinction in terms of time. The traditional language of eschatology has much to offer ethics when it becomes clear that it lends a particular approach to time. The community of the new time, embodied in the resurrection, shares a space with the rest of society but has a different view of the timeful dimension of all its actions. Eschatology has much to offer Hauerwas in his controversial use of narrative also. Many of the hermeneutical problems associated with postliberal hermeneutics appear very different when attention is paid to the end of the story. While Hauerwas usually addresses such questions by drawing attention to the hermeneutical community, it would help him greatly if he underlined that this community is eschatological in its understanding of revelation. Eschatology is not a gnostic way of devaluing concrete history and ethical practice, nor is it away of reducing the stress on the centrality of Christ. If one concentrates on the non-violent character of creation and the non-violence of the one who went to the cross, one has a theme - peace - which unites all the stages of the Christian story with the definitive character of the Church.
Vaclav Havel in a speech in 1989 speaks of the ‘weird fate’ which ‘can befall certain words’.
At one moment in history, courageous, liberal-minded people can be thrown into prison because a particular word means something to them, and at another moment, the same kind of people can be thrown into prison because that same word has ceased to mean anything to them, because it has changed from the symbol of a better world into the mumbo jumbo of a doltish dictator.
In Good Company: The Church As Polis - Volume 50 Issue 2 - Gloria Albrecht
This essay questions the theological position developed by Stanley Hauerwas over three decades. It first traces the origins of his thought, and argues that the alliance of radical Reformation ecclesiology with postmodern philosophy leads to an intensely idealistic ecclesiology. Hauerwas's exaltation of particular communal practices is ultimately unreal, as he fails to locate these practices in a particular institution. Due to the unreality of his ecclesiology his attack on Christendom and Constantinianism lacks substance. In the end he undermines his own position by identifying the truth of Christianity with the concrete practices of a distinctive community that he cannot identify.
Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship
is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize
no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and
politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, but also to witness
to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications
of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning
how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's
witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations.
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